


harmonious numbers

by kyrilu



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, F/F, Friendship, Implied Relationships, Post-Canon, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Bletchley, she had John, and she had her own friends. Oh, she likes Millie and Lucy and Susan (for the brief time that she'd known her, that is), but they aren't exactly her old crowd from the past. She's drifted away from them by now, pulled apart by the nonexistent specter of necessity and war, and as a nearly hung murderer, she's realised she can't exactly walk up to them and say, "Hullo."</p><p>The only constant of her past, oddly enough, is Jean, who had come running to the rescue -  that stubborn old woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	harmonious numbers

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for any anachronisms or Americanisms. Also, omg, I don't think anyone's written this pairing before...

Somehow, Millie convinces her to go out to a dance hall that night with her. She promises Alice that there's nothing illicit this time, with a half-cheeky, half-sad little wink, and Alice isn't quite sure what to say.

But it sounds lovely - Alice has the money for it, with her new job under her belt, and she buys clothes of her own this time. When Alice comes over, Millie first compliments her dress, coloured a bottle green.

"I invited the others to join us," Millie says, and smiling, she reaches out to spin Alice around, letting her new dress swirl 'round. Alice can't help but let out a soft giggle - she just feels delighted, young, and it doesn't hurt so much when she catches herself thinking about John.

"Lucy wanted to invite that boy of hers, Ben, but he's got Scotland Yard work to take care of," Millie continues. "But she's coming anyway. I asked Jean, too."

"Jean?" Alice says, bemused. "Dancing with that leg of hers? Anyhow, your dance hall doesn't sound exactly like her sort of place."

Millie waves a dismissive hand. "She likes music; she likes us. She seemed begrudging about it, but then she said there was a puzzle book she was working on with you earlier and wouldn't mind catching up with you there."

"Oh, yes," Alice says. Jean had been coming over for dinner sporadically, to see her and Lizzie. Jean and Lizzie share the same preferences in books and end up launching entire conversations over Paradise Lost or some such work, while Jean and Alice, of course, have their mutual history and interests. It's rather nice - to know that Jean's still keeping an eye out on her, even after Bletchley. She'd help save Alice's life, after all.

"Shall we go?" Millie says, offering her arm.

Alice takes her arm with a laugh. They go downstairs to their awaiting cab.

 

* * *

 

Alice doesn't end up dancing much that night - Millie and Lucy are stunning on the dance floor, though, and it seems like Millie knows every dance that there is. Alice stays on the sidelines with Jean, chatting amicably from subject to subject. She'd thought that Jean would turn her nose up at all the young people in the hall, awkwardly out of place, but Jean seems fine, tapping her fingers on her cane in time with the swinging music.

Millie manages to talk Alice into drinking, swooping in to hand Alice glasses of what she thinks she ought to try, and embarrassingly enough, Alice is a lightweight (or, rather, Millie has a preference for strong drinks), and it doesn't take her too long to feel drunk. There's a pleasant warm buzz in her head, a flush on her cheeks, and the lights in the room seems to be more vivid. Time passes, and her conversations with Jean don't relent; Alice finds herself, for some reason, wishing that Jean was wearing that pearl necklace she'd worn to talk business with that Maltese women, the beads of white seeming to accentuate her throat...

Her thoughts are interrupted when she feels Jean's hand on her shoulder. "I think it's time for you to go home, dear. It's late, and you're, well."

Alice blinks, trying to adjust her eyes to the unnaturally bright colours of her surroundings. "Y-yes. Right. I probably should be off."

"You're in no fit state to be taking a cab by yourself," Jean says. "Millie shall have to--"

"Millie's in no fit state herself," Lucy interrupts, cheerily, dragging along a clearly very drunk Millie. Lucy looks a bit sloshed herself, but only slightly. "I can take her home," Lucy pokes a teasing finger on Millie's back, "and Jean, you can take Alice. Division of labour and all that."

Alice glances over to sneak a look at Jean's face - she hopes that she isn't disappointed or upset in their drinking behaviour. But Jean only lets out a sigh, probably realising she'd been stuck in this role ever since she said yes to Millie to come. "All right. But you better promise me, Alice, that you mustn't give up walking. My leg can only take so much, girl."

"Promise," Alice says, with a sideways smile.

On the cab back to Alice's flat, she nearly drowses asleep. It's been a long week at her new job, Alice Lancaster pounding away at the typewriter, and the alcohol makes her head all muddled. She halfway slumps over on Jean - and Jean smells nice, she thinks. Not like fragrant perfume like Millie, or that sharp chemical smell that John had always seemed to carry with him, or like anything for anyone else. Jean smells like books, like paper and records, and it reminds Alice so very much of Bletchley that there's something like tight longing in her chest.

At Bletchley, she had John, and she had her own friends. Oh, she likes Millie and Lucy and Susan (for the brief time that she'd known her, that is), but they aren't exactly her old crowd from the past. She's drifted away from them by now, pulled apart by the nonexistent specter of necessity and war, and as a nearly hung murderer, she's realised she can't exactly walk up to them and say, "Hullo."

The only constant of her past, oddly enough, is Jean, who had come running to the rescue - that stubborn old woman.

But this is her new life now. She can't keep looking back. She's got a beautiful, intelligent daughter, and she's got the most wonderful friends.

While she's contemplating this, Jean suddenly touches her arm. "We're here, Alice. I'll help you out, best I can."

"No--it's fine." Alice nudges Jean's hand away, and climbs out of the cab. "I can walk. Would you like to stay overnight? It's very late. Lizzie's staying over with a friend of hers; you can have her bed. We can go out for breakfast in the morning," she adds.

Jean hesitates, and then huffs out a breath. "Might as well. I'm not as young as I used to be. Thank you, dear."

"Thank you for taking me home," Alice returns, and somehow, she manages to make it up to her flat, with Jean behind her.

Once she's through her door, she stumbles toward her bed. She vows to never take anything alcoholic that Millie offers her again. She sees Jean settle down in a sitting position on Lizzie’s bed, letting out a grunt as she sets her cane aside, and instead of going to her own bed, Alice finds herself making her way toward Jean. Sitting down next to her on the duvet. She’s tired, but she doesn’t want to go to sleep - not yet.

She feels a queer edge of giddiness, and she says, quietly, “I never aplogised for getting you shot, you know.”

A scoff. “It’s not your fault, silly girl. It’s that madman’s.”

“Can I--can I see?” She’s not sure why she asks. Jean doesn’t move to stop her when Alice parts the layers of her skirts, and eventually, she finds the scar on her leg. A circle of red on skin. Alice traces the wound, gently, feeling the rough edges, her fingertips playing out constellations. She ponders over whether Jean can read the aimless patterns, can find out a discernible meaning and guess what pattern she’ll trace next. She thinks that Jean can.

There’s a closed-off, unfathomable expression on Jean’s face. Alice looks at the lines on Jean’s cheekbones, the set of her chin, and wonders how _those_ would feel underneath her hand. She takes Jean’s hand instead, just a careful clasp of her wrist.

Alice says, “The girls in my hut sometimes stayed up after lights-out for a while. We didn’t want to get caught being awake and talking, so we did what we knew best--we used code. Maybe to chat about our day, to whinge about something bothering us, to trade secrets.” She drums her fingers against Jean’s wrist. “Morse.”

“That’s very clever,” Jean says, quietly.

“Mm,” she says in reply, her voice faint as if she’s far away.

Alice can feel the exhaustion creeping up to her. It’s something slow and weary, suffusing her body with the sensation of fading. She doesn’t want to fight it, and instead, her head falls against Jean’s shoulder, and somehow, somehow, they shift to accommodate each other, and then they’re both lying down on the bed, half-curled against each other.

Alice murmurs, “You were always watching me at Bletchley, you know.” Jean stiffens against her, but then sighs, long and warm and maybe a bit sad. Alice lulls herself asleep to the Morse rhythm of her fingertips on Jean’s wrist, tapping out _J-E-A-N,_ and before she finally falls into darkness, she wonders what this is.


End file.
